Posted: Jun 3, 08 3:02pm
The trip was in the middle of winter, not ideal for travel either here or there, but it was when we got to go...so go we did!
One advantage was getting to go to touristy type spots in the off season, beating all the crowds! One day was set aside to go to the "waterfall park" (which didn't have the roaring waterfalls our kids had seen last summer) and tour the falls, the caves (by boat and walking), and taking a boat ride up river to see the minority village there.
The kids were either going back to school from lunch break at home, or going home from the fields (and then returning to school). The boy, in the first frame, was carrying a basket of greens from their fields. Most of the other school kids we saw were walking in the opposite direction and carrying their backpacks, and many of them yelled out "lao wai" at us (foreigner). There was no way our anglo faces could fit in there. (At some of the other spots we went to, even just around town, often people would openly take cell phone pictures of us, or ask to pose with us! We were assured by our kids that this happens all the time, and more young people wanted to 'pose' with them for pics than with us...sort of fun to see).
I left a huge part of my heart there...the simple way of life, although it's without many conveniences we have here, and my heart breaks to think of all those that have lost so much of their family through the recent tragedies in other areas of the world. Friends who traveled there to provide medical relief said it was eerie to drive for HOURS with seeing nothing but rubble...and to enter a town with adults and babies, but to have no school age children there. Everyone lost someone, and so they don't feel they have the "right" to grieve. It's so sad.
This boy was walking along the river, either to or from school.
This is the framed pic...one of my fav's from the trip.
These girls would rather hide than see us! Most yelled "Lao Wai" at us..
The village they all lived in...
